I'm wondering what trick they'll pull out of their hats for the next FE. They already threw almost every notable character from previous games into this one. And forget about balance or difficulty.. it's pretty much a broken sandbox a-la FFT/TO at this point with all the DLC released.

I'm wondering what trick they'll pull out of their hats for the next FE. They already threw almost every notable character from previous games into this one. And forget about balance or difficulty.. it's pretty much a broken sandbox a-la FFT/TO at this point with all the DLC released.

Game came out in April in Japan, so from that angle it's an average localization time, maybe a bit slow by modern expectations when it's not licensed to someone else.

From a perspective of announcement to release... Well, I believe they did indicate it'd be out early 2012, but admittedly Nintendo tends to announce much closer to the actual release than most publishers would.

With this coming out in under a month, how exactly is it? Anyone import? I didn't see much actual talk about the merits/demerits of the game in the few previous pages I read. I definitely want to pre-order this as I haven't played a Fire Emblem in awhile and they are usually the type of SRPGs that I enjoy. Anyone read anything interesting about the game, besides the optional perma-death?

With this coming out in under a month, how exactly is it? Anyone import? I didn't see much actual talk about the merits/demerits of the game in the few previous pages I read. I definitely want to pre-order this as I haven't played a Fire Emblem in awhile and they are usually the type of SRPGs that I enjoy. Anyone read anything interesting about the game, besides the optional perma-death?

They basically threw everything short of the kitchen sink into this game. They've got a world map and alternate promotion choices ala Sacred Stones, they've got a generational/eugenics/incest aspect ala FE4, they've got an improved version of the customizable skill sets ala Radiant Dawn, they've got a similar support function ala the GBA era FE games, they've got forging and online shops ala the DS remakes, they've got a 'everybody's room' for miscellaneous character building and random items, they've got a customizable avatar unit ala FEDS2. The only things they're missing are FE2 & 8's trainees and FE5's capturing mechanics and that's just the old stuff. The new stuff includes having multiple class options per character, as well as the option to class down to visit a different prepromoted class for its skills, and the option to have units 'double' up which allows two different characters to function as one as well as providing additional stat boosts for the character in the lead, plus units adjacent to, or 'double'd up onto, other units can participate in battle by either pitching in an additional attack or blocking an incoming attack, and when you're done with the main game you can take on side quests for extra characters, download DLC missions (both free and not so free) which tend to offer extra classes, skills, characters, and challenges, and connect to other players playing the game to either challenge or recruit their team.

As for the other things like story, plot, music, character designs, ect..., from what I've learned the story's okay, the music's great, the character designs are ehh (especially the DLC ones), and the challenge varies from cakewalk (normal with DLC during the main story) to "unless I can somehow bum rush the win condition in 2-3 turns I am completely fucked." (lunatic+ during main story without grinding).

And though I haven't imported or played it yet, I did spend a rather unfortunate amount of my unemployment purgatory sperging out over it (I wanted to figure out who would be the best parents for the best kids and well now I know that, and the worst parents, and what to do if I make my avatar female instead of male, as well as which class is statistically the best, what path I want to take to optimize my skills (both in the main plot as well as afterwards), which class is statistically the worst, what classes to take to optimize my stat gains per level, who I want to download for my DLC party (you can download anybody, including other players' avatars, and even have multiple copies of either but you can only have 20 available on your deployment roster at any given time with everybody else needing to be released back into the cyber aether of your downloaded roster), and so on....).

Holy cow! I was so consumed by grad school the past few years that I had no idea this was even coming! Guess I'll have to get a 3DS now.

I've been searching around for screens and videos since reading this topic and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with what I'm seeing. Shadow Dragon and Radiant Dawn were pretty disappointing entries in the series, but it looks like this game may get things back on track. Really liking the graphics and character art too. Only a month away? Great!

They're also missing things like game balance, a scoring system, or a difficulty mode that isn't easily broken. Before you ask, yes there were a couple of FEs that had scoring systems.

I can't honestly say though that any FE game has been perfectly balanced; case and point: archers.

But yes, you can easily do things like abuse the DLC chapters for vast amounts of cash, massive quantities of experience, and a veritable mountain of uber weapons a short ways into the main game. At least you don't have to abuse these things to get through the game, even on the hardest difficulty.

And yes, there's no scoring or even a death count like in earlier games. And in regards to the scoring, I can't imagine that working well with a game that lets you build up support levels with virtually everybody to A rank (there's an S rank now which is for marriages and limited to one per). It just creates a conflict of interest like it did in FEs 6 & 7.